Owl pellets are the undigested remains of an owl's carnivorous diet. Many hours after eating, an owl regurgitates the egg-shaped pellet, which contains a tight mass of unused animal material, such as bones, teeth, fur and feathers. This waste material has been tightly compressed by the owl's gizzard before it is expelled. Exploring what's inside an owl pellet is a fun activity you and the kids can do at home anytime.

Owl pellets can be found below the spots where owls perch. While some people are lucky enough to find them in the wild, we always purchase ours from a local nature center. (You can also find them online on sites like Amazon.) The ones that you purchase are heat-treated for sanitization and wrapped in foil.

After one of our recent L.A. rainstorms, my daughter and I went on a neighborhood nature hunt, bringing home fistfuls of newly fallen sticks, tree bark, leaves and—best of all—Jacaranda seed pods.

I've had my eye on the seed pods for some time. One of our neighboring streets is lined with the lilac-flowered trees, which drop the pods onto the sidewalk where we walk. When they dry and split open to release their seeds, the spent pods take the shape of little round heads with gaping mouths—this one looking a bit like a turtle, that one maybe a snake.

We let the seed pods dry for a few days following the rain, and then we busted out our craft supplies to bring our seed pod critters to life. Below are the creations we've come up with so far, but since each seed pod is a slightly different size and shape, they lend themselves to endless designs. We found it fun to work on several pods at once. While the glue or paint was drying on one, we would jump right to the next.